Nokia reveals official new TV ad to get users to #Switch to Lumia

During our recent interview with Nokia’s Chris Weber we asked whether or not the company would start showing off some specific features of their Lumia 920 (and other phones) in targeted ads. It looks like the answer is yes as Nokia today posted a new video urging users to switch to Lumia as the 920 and 820 are shown off.

As expected the ad concentrates on just a few specific areas of the Windows Phone 8 Lumia line: excellent photography, wireless charging and augmented reality (City Lens).

The style of the ad nicely juxtaposes with Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 8 ads with their “Meet the new Windows Phone 8 Reinvented Around You” message (see below) and we have a feeling the two companies collaborated to maintain that consistency.

The ad is of course dubbed with a British accent, which will never fly over here in the States but that’s a trivial thing that can be overcome to make this more regional friendly. After all, no one actually talks in the video making this ready to be translated into other international markets.

Everyone is a critic with commercials on the internet, which means some of you will love this while others will throw a hissy fit as it doesn’t fit with your vision. Personally, we think it’s a solid ad that highlights the varied colored range, excellent features while maintaining a simple message. It’s not an ad that will go viral but it’s classy and well done for what it is

Lol Nokia windows phones are so colorful! I think it's a great ad, because some of the features they showed are not available on other platforms. I remember the first time I saw Nokia City Lens demo, I was like wow this is really nice! And I'm a nerd, so imagine people who know nothing about technology!

People have a nostalgic feeling for Nokia and how good and reliable those old phones were. I thought the dubstep version was horrible and not memorable at all and dubstep is just a fad and will just come off as being dated.

The thing I find most curious about that, while Microsofts shows the phones and you can clearly see the HTC and Nokia logos on them, the Nokia Add NEVER EVER mentions "microsoft" or "windows phone". Not once. All you get is a small "windows phone" logo on the botton of the 920 picture right at the end.

(Sure you can say "you can see the Microsoft logo button". Yeah, except the vast majority of people are NOT familiar with the new (imo uglier) logo. While the old flag with the cross is easily recognizable, the new one...not so much.)

Not true. Surface ads are playing on every channel every like half hour it seems. I'm sure people see and recognize the new windows flags (sleeker and sexier imo) just as easily as they did the old...well maybe not just as easily at first but they will make the connection I'm sure.

They don't need an ad to get me to switch to a Lumia, they need to make it available. They've yet to launch the Lumia 920 here in Ireland & when it does it'll probably be exclusive on a different carrier. And if/when that exclusivity ends a new Lumia flagship phone will have been released by then. And by the time I get around to upgrading to the 920 it'll only be available in black :'(
*ends rant

I think this would do a good job drawing interest from people who use feature phones, and those who use Android handsets as though it were a feature phone. It's a good way to capitalize on WP's traditional user base, i.e. first time smartphone users, or could-care-less Android/iOS users. In any case, as long as Nokia can hit all key price-points with a variety of devices, especially in the mid, low and ultra-low range, they should be fine.

Nokia focused on their injection of color in today's smartphone world (although they had colors with their N8's), imaging, (whatever the light), wireless charging (and their charging pad accessories), and their technology with City Lens, and the VERY nostalgic and famous, Nokia Tune...the ad is apropro.

Their was really no need for them to focus on WP8 features - that's Microsoft's job!

Decent ad. Don't see a problem with the female British accent. Biggest problem is the middle finger swiping. For some reason people get all upset when the see that particular finger brandished about, regardless of the context of which it is being used.

You know what I hate.. Bad commercials. Thus is one of them. Come on Nokia. Make a commercial that make the OS and the phone shine. Look at apple commercials.. They a brilliant. Even the one about back ground noise reduction that's not even an invented feature by Apple.. Look at Samsung adds va Apple. Brilliant.. Come on Nokia,you cam do better..

I switched from android as well and now have a Lumia 920 but have an atrix HD as a backup phone I still love android its a powerful OS but I don't need a mobile OS like that its to cluttered and takes to long to do simple tasks compared to WP I always feel I'm achieving the same amount of work or play with half the screen time

If Nokia were to run this ad in the States, they should leave the British accent. It would grab the typical American's attention more than their native accent. Besides, the foreign accent fits right in with "people around the world." What wouldn't go over so well is the middle finger.

BTW, I'd love to see the Daav Laga (Indian) Windows 8 commercial play in the States. My whole family is hooked on the song, and the kids beg me to "play 'that' Windows 8 commercial." Of all the Win 8 commercials, that one shows off the OS the best. It'd be cool if Microsoft or an OEM would replicate it somehow for Windows Phone.

One problem, with all the problems Youtube has with blocking its API's to WP, why are these video's only on YouTube?
As for the adverts I would say the Nokia one was good, I'm not a fan of the fast switching around at the start though, it just feels like I'm being hussled when I see that in adverts, and doing lots of things fast feels like hard work. But the advert does get the good points across well, its a positive overall.
The US microsoft one though is better, it has a bit of emotion to it, its downside is that its does not mention features, but I guess its not required there since its most getting WP out there and known.

I do marketing research for a living and in my professional opinion..."FAIL" is too strong a word, but I'll settle for "ineffective", or "forgettable". This might be fine for a YouTube ad, but they'd be wasting their money running this on TV. The biggest problem is that the ad showcases three "features"- camera, wireless charging and City Lens- in exactly 0:12 seconds.
First, this is too much information in too little time for the average TV viewer to remember. Second, this is not enough time to create a compelling story about even one of these features. Seriously, the evidence for "great photos in any light" comprises two frames of video over the course of one second. You can make out that a guy takes a picture, maybe with a flash, of some people sitting at a counter. That's it.
Nokia needs to make a series of ads, each one focused completely on a unique feature. This is where Apple gets it right. Are their ads sometimes painfully slow and plodding? Yes. But I can guarantee you that >90% of viewers can walk away from an Apple ad and tell you exactly what they just saw. More importantly, they will remember that for weeks or even months afterwards.

I agree 100%. You can't tout a feature without actually explaining the feature. Every "see Nokia City Lens in action" ad video that I've seen only shows NCL for a half a second (if you blink you'll miss it), with no explanation of what it is and how it works. Nokia needs to actually "tell people" in ads about the praise that the camera has received, not just say "it has Carl Zeiss optics" (as they did last yr in ads)...no one knows what Carl Zeiss optics is. Ads need to "tell people" exactly why they should like it, not hope that they will somehow figure it out. They need to "tell people" exacatly what opinion you want them to have of your product. "It's Just Better!" would have been a better catch phrase than "It's time to switch". (Something I've tried to get MSFT to adopt when advertising the OS).
This was Steve Jobs' true genius, not his technical ability, but his marketing ability. He was better at making you want "his" rather than "yours", because he understood how to make ads resonate with people. (something MSFT has never known how to do).